That's What Bob's Cooking

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

As you all have read, Craig and I joined a CSF (Best Catch Seattle)few weeks back. I’ve posted about Black Cod, Rock Fish, Ling Cod, and King Salmon. This week, when we received the email telling us what the fresh caught fish was, I was like….I know what I'm making! Julia Child’s first dish she ate when she arrived in France, Sole Meunière

Growing up, I never had an appreciation for Julia Child. She was always on channel 10 (PBS in Portland), and I found her show boring and didn't actually care for her. In 2009, when the movie, Julie and Julia came out, we went and saw it, thinking “I'm not really into Julia, but I like to cook, so maybe I'll like it”. I never realized how much of an impact that movie would make on the way I cook. When I left the theater, I went home and downloaded every book I could find to listen to from, “My Life In France”, to “Appetite For Life”, just to name a couple. I even found a first edition “Mastering The Art Of French Cooking”. I then went back and watched a quite a few of her TV programs “The French Chef”, and was like, wow look at all I missed. Now, any opportunity I get to make one of her recipes, I always opt for one from Julia.

Now, Sole……my mom used to microwave sole for dinner, so my impression of this delicious fish was not all that favorable. Sole is a flatfish, and is a member of the Flounder family, and a bottom feeder. It’s a fast cooking fish and can easily be over cooked. Here is the recipe I used for today’s share of our CSF.

2. Rinse sole and pat dry. If fillets are longer than 6 or 7 inches, cut in half crosswise so they'll be less likely to break when you turn them. Sprinkle each fillet lightly with salt. Coat on all sides with flour, shake off excess, and lay pieces side by side on a sheet of plastic wrap.

3. In a 12- to 14-inch frying pan over high heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter; when hot, lay as many pieces as will fit side by side in pan without crowding and cook until browned on the bottom, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Turn with a wide, flexible metal spatula and brown remaining side, 1 to 2 minutes longer (if butter begins to scorch, reduce heat to medium-high). With spatula, transfer fillets to an ovenproof platter, laying pieces side by side, and keep warm in a 200º oven. Melt 1 more tablespoon butter in frying pan; repeat step to cook remaining sole fillets, transfer to platter, and keep warm in the oven.

4. With a paper towel, wipe frying pan clean and return to high heat. Add 1 to 2 more tablespoons butter and the capers; stir until butter is melted. Add lemon juice, remove from heat, and stir in about 3 tablespoons of the parsley. At once, scrape butter mixture over hot fish fillets. Garnish with lemon slices and remaining parsley and sprinkle generously with pepper. With spatula, transfer fillets to plates. Season to taste with more salt.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

It's been a couple of weeks now I've been reporting on the CSF (Community Supported Fishing, Best Catch Seattle ). This week our share is a pound portion of Washington caught King Salmon.
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Fresh King Salmon

Any time I get fresh fish, I prefer to season and cook the fish and let the true flavor come through. Last night I seasoned the fish with fresh cracked black pepper and a sprinkle of some lava salt our neighbors brought us back from Hawaii and few years ago.

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Hawaiian Black Lava Salt

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Salmon, portioned and seasoned

We receive an email either the day before, or the morning of our scheduled pick up. This give me enough time to plan out dinner, although I do have an arsenal of ideas for side dishes. With the weather turning warmer on the west coast, I didn't want something heavy, so I opted for a grilled pineapple and cucumber salsa and an Asian style Cole slaw. The pineapple cucumber salsa I have made before and is a hit in our house. The Asian style Cole slaw is an adaptation of a friends recipe we helped make for her sisters 60th birthday a few years ago.

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Dinner

Asian Style Cole Slaw

Dressing:

1 T sugar

½ cup oil

2 tsp sesame oil

½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

¼ cup rice wine vinegar

2 T garlic chili paste

2 T finely chopped cilantro

Packet from the ramen

Salad:

1 small head green cabbage, shredded

1 bunch green onions, chopped

2 packaged instant ramen soup (chicken flavor)

½ cup toasted slivered almonds

1 can sliced water chestnuts, roughly chopped

1 can baby corn, cut into 1 inch pieces

Instructions:

Mix dressing together, set aside.

Toss together the cabbage, green onions, almonds, corn, and water chestnuts. Crush the dry ramen noodles on top of salad.

Pour dressing and stir to combine.

Salad needs to rest 3-4 hours, for the cabbage and noodles to soak up the flavor of the dressing.

*Note: you can use any type you like, except red-it bleeds.

It was also suggested to add shredded chicken and stuff a Pita with this.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

This is the second week of our CSF (community supported fishing). Last week was Black Cod, this week, Ling Cod and Rock Fish (red snapper). Craig and I talked this morning about how we were going to prepare the fish and side dishes. I was pretty set on the cucumber feta salad, and when I mentioned green onion rice, he said, maybe I should make traditional Persian rice with saffron. Any time he offers to cook, I'm just fine with that.

When we picked up our fish today, we noticed that both fish combined, we at least 2 meals. So while we had planned for tonight's dinner, we quickly planned a dinner for tomorrow. Back to tonight’s dinner, when I heard we were getting Ling Cod, I immediately thought of an Asian marinade. Garlic, Ginger Lemongrass marinade. So dinner tonight was a team effort. Craig did his traditional Persian rice with saffron and I made Cucumber Feta salad and the marinate for the fish.

Lemongrass Garlic Ginger marinade

2 stalks lemongrass

2-inch piece fresh ginger (about 3 tablespoons finely minced)

5 garlic cloves, finely minced

1 jalapeno or Serrano pepper, finely minced

4 tablespoon palm sugar (or use brown sugar)

3 tablespoon fish sauce

2 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoon canola oil

2 tablespoon rice vinegar

If you haven’t used lemongrass before, this is what you do for this recipe: Peel outer layer of lemongrass. Cut off top third of stalk, then cut off root end of stalk; discard. Thinly slice rest of stalk crosswise, and then finely mince it. It should smell lemony!

Peel and finely mince the ginger and garlic. Finely minced the pepper (if you like a milder flavor, begin by slicing pepper in half and removing seeds before mincing). I have done all this mincing of ginger, garlic and pepper by hand, or the short way in my mini food processor. Suit yourself.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

A couple of weekends ago, Craig and I drove out to the Olympic Peninsula, the northwestern most point in Washington. This area is a rain forest, so there is usually a lot of rain and wetness. The trip was an adventure, as we had to take a ferry across the Puget Sound, across the floating bridge in Hood Canal, through Port Gamble (such a cute little town), through Sequim, and Port Angeles, by Lake Crescent, La Push and finally to Forks…..you know the town when the Twilight books and movies were set. While we're not vampire or werewolf fans, so the references were just wasted on us. Either way, we had a great time, doing just what we like, seeing the national parks, beaches and shopping at a few farmers markets.

Hurricane Ridge

Beach at La Push

That brings me to this post. While in Port Angeles, on our way back from Hurricane Ridge, we stopped by the Farmers Market and picked up a few things, some great bread, potatoes, and a few leeks. I didn't want to do my typical Potato Leek soup, so I did a little research and came up with inspiration for this delicious recipe. Check it out below….

Chicken, Leek and Brie Rustic Pie

Serves: 4

ingredients

2 large square sheets puff pastry, thawed

1 oz butter

1 leek thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic crushed

1 T fresh rosemary, diced

14 oz skinless chicken breast, diced into 1 inch cubes/stripes

½ cup white wine

½ cup chicken stock

2 tablespoons cornstarch

¼ cup cold water

¾-1 cup grate Parmesan

3.5 oz brie thinly sliced

¼ cup parsley chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten

salt and pepper

Directions

1. Heat oven to 390 and line a cookie tray with parchment paper (or a Silpat).

2. In a medium sized saucepan over a medium heat, melt the butter and cook down the garlic, leek and rosemary for around 8 minutes until soft. Add chicken and cook throughly.

3. Add the wine and stock to the saucepan and continue to cook for 5 minutes (make sure it reduces, by half). Season with salt and pepper.

4. In a small bowl mix together the cornstarch and water to create a paste. Add this to the chicken mixture along with the chopped parsley. Mix through and remove from heat.

5. Place the first sheet on the cookie tray and spoon the chicken mixture into the center. Spread the mixture out, leaving a ½ inch boarder. Place the slices of brie on top. With a pastry brush (or your finger), brush some of the beaten egg around this border.

6. Take the second sheet of the puff pastry and place on a cutting board. Cut sheet into ½ inch strips, “braid” the strips over the top of the chicken mixture, press down the border with your fingers and brush the egg over the top of the pie. Sprinkle some finishing salt on the egg wash.

7. Cook for around 30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

I came across a recipe a while back, I'm really not sure where it came from, as the piece of paper it was on was floating around my car for quite some time. Now, I love me some curry, so when I read this recipe, I was like I need to make this. And as you know, I write a menu each week to ensure I stay on track and continue to use up my hoard of food products. Well, this has been on the menu for several weeks now and keeps being pushed back. With the recent warm weather in the Northwest, and things going on in my life, it just didn't fit in with my schedule. It's really more of a cool weather dish.

So tonight, after we came back from a weekend get away to the Olympic Rain Forest and the surrounding areas, I decided a cold wet Sunday would be the perfect day for this soup. It's a quick put together, and a great spicy dinner. In the end, we decided it needed “something”, so Craig is going to try his hand in Naan bread making this week.

My sister and her daughter came up for a visit recently. While they were here, we drove to Whidbey Island, via Deception Pass. During...

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I was born and raised on the East side of Portland Oregon, by two native and second generation, Oregonians, my Mom and Dad (Jack and Joan).Oregon, and the Northwest are deep in my blood.That being said, I have always had an interest in cooking. I would love to add a warm loving story here about how my Mom nurtured my love of cooking by setting me up on or near the counter top to help with whatever she was cooking. Well, that's not exactly the case.

Being a child of the 70's and 80's, I had a great exposure to classic foods like Spam, Tang, Rice-a-Roni and Hamburger Helper. While many of these premade, sodium roller coaster, treats where regulars on our table, my Mom would have to hold the title as "casserole queen". Casseroles are her favorite and her specialty. Whereas, my Dad was more of a spur of the moment kind of cook. His creations included many of the items from our makeshift pantry. Sometimes, i think he was thinking, "the more ingredients, the better it'll be!". I think my first attempt at cooking would have to have been making cookies, either peanut butter (with the criss-cross fork tine print on top), or chocolate chip cookies. Over the years I have made so many of both of these recipes, I have surely lost count.

During middle school, my Mom encouraged me to take Home Economics, thinking that all kids, boy or girl, should know how to cook out in this world. This sparked a growing interest in cooking. So when I entered my junior year of High School, at David Douglas, I enrolled in the culinary arts program, we called it Food Services I. This was a class that had been offered many years before, where the students ran a restaurant, The Kilt, during the lunch periods.Unfortunately, since the class had not been offered in several years, so we didn’t have enough students to open the restaurant, that year. Within the first few weeks of this class, my instructor asked if I'd like to be involved in an outside "club" (kind of like a version of Eagle Scouts) that was mentored by local business owners.It sounded interesting so I joined (not to mention it got me out of the first 2 periods of the day).

At our first meeting I was approached by Sylvia Poesdel, the owner of the Portland landmark restaurant, Sylvia's Italian Restaurant & Dinner Theatre. She asked me if I would be interested in an afterschool job, coming to work for her to learn the cooking/chef trade on the job. I jumped at the chance and started in October of 1985. During my senior year I rejoined the culinary arts program (Food Services II) and this year we were able to reopened the restaurant, which the rest of the students voted me to manage. I just absolutely loved it!I worked at Sylvia's until after I graduated, in 1989.I learned a lot about the restaurant industry, and I would have to say it would be one ofjust a few life altering jobs I have had throughout my career.

After high school, while Iwas working at Sylvia's, I applied to culinary arts school. The Two things kept me from continuing my career in culinary arts, were financial and having worked out in the field, I saw so many negative attributes to being a chef, I decided that since I love to cook, I wanted it to be a hobby, and not a drag to go work each day.

When I left Sylvia's, I worked at a hotel, then Safeway. From there I joined Fred Meyer in the Service Deli, and was quickly promoted to a manager.During the next 8 years, I worked throughout the Portland and Southern Oregon areas.In 1998, I earned a promotion to the regional specialist position (District Manager) in Seattle. During this career move, I learned so much about the Food Service industry. I was charged to develop a new service salad case program, as well as work on a new catering program.I had the opportunity to work with manufacturers to develop these new programs.

In 2000, I met the love of my life, Craig.I also, moved from the food service program to the grocery department as an assistant manager. In the capacity I learned to develop my management skills as well as managing inventory. By being the best in my category, I earned the position of manager, where I moved from store to store cleaning up and reorganizing as I went. I also was entrusted with training future Food managers for the region. At which point I was pursued by another company to run a store for them, and enter back into the restaurant industry.During these 3 years, I learned the Restaurant Supplier side of the business.While I enjoyed the time I spent in this opportunity, I yearned to go back to the Grocery industry, and spend more time with my first love, cooking, and writing about my adventures….in the kitchen!